Starting with the halo of Binance's futures contract founding team, it now faces retreat amid delays in the roadmap, co-founders' silence, and competition pressures.

Written by: Sanqing, Foresight News

On October 15, decentralized perpetual contract DEX StandX tweeted that it would not proceed with the token issuance and would instead airdrop DUSD to the community in one go, while the platform would gradually cease operations. On October 13, StandX was listed on the Aspecta pre-market, with an implied fully diluted valuation (FDV) nearing $350 million at one point. Many users participating in the points activity believed that a token issuance was imminent. Following the announcement, StandX's price on Aspecta pre-market plummeted by approximately 98.8%.

CEO AG subsequently stated that without external capital, StandX’s TVL had once reached $200 million but still failed to meet expectations of entering the industry’s top three; given the current fundamentals, the project "could indeed proceed with a token issuance," but if long-term value cannot be realized, profiting from token issuance and short-term speculation merely "passes the cost onto users and the community." Co-founder Justin, who had been silent for over eight months, also tweeted expressing, "I'm sorry that I couldn't help everyone make money."

KOL round refunds and the long-silent team

StandX initially attracted the market due to the team’s background. Among the three co-founders, current CEO AG oversaw all of Binance's futures business, Justin was the head of Binance Futures Growth, and the third member came from Goldman Sachs' trading systems team. According to the co-founders in a previous interview, this team joined Binance in March 2019, launched Binance Futures six months later, and saw trading volume surpass BitMEX in the first half of the following year. With this background, StandX required little promotion when it debuted a year ago.

Regarding financing, official documents state that the project was fully self-funded and did not accept any external investments. However, according to long-time Discord users, StandX conducted a KOL-only funding round about a year ago.

While the specific amount and valuation of the KOL round remain unknown to outsiders, some informed sources disclosed that X user @pinkkbuny stated that the agreement originally stipulated a full refund of principal before the TGE, and he had returned his funds several months ago; @Grampe466 mentioned he knew refunds for the KOL round had been ongoing since last year, with another batch refunded this year; @QiYib5, who claims to have participated, denied the claim of a "KOL collective pressure," believing there were issues within the team.

Meanwhile, the project roadmap has been repeatedly pushed back. When DUSD was scheduled to go live in April 2025, Perps trading was originally planned for launch in July, but in reality, Alpha testing only opened in October, and the mainnet launched on November 24; the market maker plan had promised to distribute 5 million StandX tokens monthly, but the token has yet to be issued; in May of this year, the team had stated they might complete TGE within the year.

Accompanying the delays in the roadmap has been the prolonged silence of core members. Before this official announcement, Justin's last original tweet was on December 8, 2025, and his last public reply to a user was on February 5, 2026, after which there were no updates; CEO AG's last tweet was on September 3, and the official Discord announcement was dated September 28.

Since mid-September, long-time users have publicly demanded the CEO express a stance on token economics. After refund rumors began to circulate, the community repeatedly called out administrators in Discord for explanations, receiving only a response of "please wait for the official announcement," and moderators indicated their work followed the same line. It was not until the official announcement on October 15 that the two co-founders broke their silence.

According to crypto KOL Sea's report after a call with the project team that day, the team believed the cost of continuing operations was significant, "a short pain is better than a long pain." He also mentioned that the principal from the KOL round had been fully refunded by April this year, and participants would receive a small DUSD airdrop based on their contribution level.

Points halved twice, 27 times high turnover fails to retain real holdings

In the past year, StandX's points rules have undergone several rewrites. During the deposit phase, each holding of 1 DUSD earns 1 point per day; during the Alpha phase, this was increased to 1.2 points, and during the Thanksgiving period after the mainnet launch, it was further enhanced to 1.5 times. On December 10, 2025, trading points were launched and retroactively calculated, with the first day seeing a 10% points boost in conjunction with Binance wallets, pushing StandX's daily trading volume to over $81 million. In January 2026, the platform launched Maker Points, where orders that remain for over 3 seconds earn points even if they do not execute, followed by the addition of Loser Points based on losses.

After intensive boosts, the issuance of points was quickly tightened. On May 24, the issuance of trading, Maker, and holding points was simultaneously halved; on August 10, it was halved again, with the official statement indicating this was the final adjustment. Following two halvings, each holding of 1 DUSD now earns only 0.3 points per day.

Points are becoming increasingly difficult to earn, yet the core redemption rules have never been clearly explained. The StandX official website’s points page only lists current rates, stating that the points activity is an acceleration period towards the "next important milestone," but the total points, overall network issuance, ending time for the activities, and the proportion of the airdrop to the total token volume have not been disclosed.

These questions ultimately went unanswered. According to the closure announcement, StandX will no longer issue tokens, with the airdrop changed to DUSD distributed in one go, with no lock-up period, and the amount calculated based on deposits, Alpha, mainnet transactions, market making, and invitations, which also need to pass witch and volume-fraud checks, with adjustments or cancellations possible for unusual accounts. The airdrop funds come from project surpluses and personal contributions from AG, and all revenues from DUSD will stop from October 15 onward.

In the face of unfulfilled expectations, the market's reaction has been quite direct. Before the announcement, according to DefiLlama data, StandX's TVL dropped from a peak of $107 million in January to approximately $22.8 million on October 15, a decline of 79%; after the April SIP-2 holding rewards went live, the outstanding contract volume (OI) once rose to $72.1 million but then continuously fell back to $13.6 million.

In contrast to the significant shrinkage of holdings, StandX's trading volume has not correspondingly diminished, with nearly $11.17 billion over the past 30 days and an average turnover of about 27 times. Due to the fact that orders that do not execute also earn points, the cost of increasing volume has been driven very low, but this high trading volume driven by rules ultimately did not retain real capital holdings.

Competing products all proceed with TGE, StandX caught in between

Rewinding to the end of 2025, the projects most frequently discussed alongside StandX were Aster, Lighter, and edgeX. The community generally viewed these as key projects worthy of participation, especially enjoying comparisons between StandX and Aster, which is also on the BNB Chain.

Less than a year later, the outcomes for this group of projects have diverged. Aster had its TGE on September 17, 2025, Lighter issued tokens at the end of 2025, and edgeX completed its TGE on March 31, 2026. Only StandX remained stuck in the points phase and ultimately abandoned token issuance.

The already-issued frontrunners are widening the gap with protocol revenues.

According to DefiLlama data, the leading Perp DEX Hyperliquid has generated approximately $71.6 million in protocol revenue over the past 30 days, with an OI of approximately $7.77 billion; HYPE rose from about $54 at the end of July to an all-time high of $97.96 on September 23, an increase of about 80%; Lighter is using its protocol revenue to repurchase LIT, with revenues of about $4.85 million over the past 30 days and an OI of about $730 million; LIT rose from approximately $2.2 in early August to about $5.3 in late September, an increase of about 1.4 times. The actual revenue and buyback have provided a pricing anchor for the tokens, and the market is willing to pay for this kind of growth.

At the same time, a number of newcomers are also encroaching on the space with new play styles and clear airdrop expectations.

Variational is using a zero-fee request for quote (RFQ) model on Arbitrum, incorporating stocks and commodities into the contracts, and has now announced its TGE plan for Q4 2026, with a daily trading volume of about $3.9 billion, surpassing Aster; Arcus, incubated by dYdX Labs and linked to Robinhood Chain, focuses on 24/7 tokenized stock trading; Extended is rushing towards its final round of trading competition before issuing tokens, with a total prize pool of 250,000 USDC.

These new projects’ points and airdrop benefits are still ahead, while StandX, having halved its points twice, finds itself squeezed in between, lacking both the protocol income of a first mover and the attraction of its early mechanisms.

This situation is directly reflected in holding data. According to DefiLlama data, as of October 15, OIs for Variational, Arcus, and Extended are approximately $1.03 billion, $99 million, and $100 million, respectively, all more than seven times StandX’s, with past 30-day growth rates of approximately 24%, 462%, and 15%.

In contrast, StandX's OI is only $13.6 million, down 54% during the same period. Although StandX's trading volume over the past 30 days is still at $11.17 billion, higher than Arcus's $8.36 billion and Extended's $6.92 billion, that advantage relies mainly on high turnover, with its near 24-hour trading volume now reduced to approximately $11.6 million, less than a third of Arcus’s.

From a product mechanism perspective, StandX is not without bright spots. DUSD interest-bearing margin and SIP-5 permissionless market-making have certain recognizability, and the official has claimed that its June daily trading volume once entered the top four in Perp DEX, and the August gold contract depth surpassed Hyperliquid. However, the turnover rate reflects the true situation: Hyperliquid and Aster's daily turnovers hover around 1 time, while most of the later entrants range from 2 to 3 times, while StandX is about 27 times. The platform's trading volume is largely driven by points, not retaining capital.

Before the announcement, there was already a split within the community. In Discord, users holding points were still spamming "stand," urging everyone to ignore FUD; large holders and long-time users kept questioning the team about their long absence. There was also a noticeable information gap between the English and Chinese communities, with English users attributing rumors to Chinese KOLs, while the Chinese community spread refund news.

After the announcement, some users in the comments expressed understanding, noting that "the threshold for projects is becoming higher and higher now"; many users also expressed dissatisfaction with the previously suggestive tweets from the official.

StandX stated that the platform has served over 237,000 users and its TVL peaked at over $200 million, with no security incidents occurring during its operations. AG stated that most past revenue has been subsidized to users through SIP-2 and SIP-3. According to crypto KOL Sea, the project team claimed that StandX operated at a loss, with revenue mainly coming from fees contributed by users who were "farming," and costs primarily constituting team salaries and server expenses.

According to the announcement, StandX perpetual contracts will switch to a partial liquidation mode on October 20, with remaining positions liquidated at the marked price on January 15, 2027, and DUSD redemptions and withdrawals ceasing on January 31. Airdrop queries will open on October 26 at 08:00, with a collection window from November 1 at 08:00 to December 31 at 16:00; any unclaimed amounts past the deadline will be considered forfeited.